Description
Jack Kerouac Selected Letters 1957-1969 offers unparalleled insight into the life and mind of this giant of the American landscape.
About the Author
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His first novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady, that epitomized to the world what became known as the "Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of "one vast book," The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.
Reviews
"Reveals the boldness and originality of Kerouac's artistic vision."
The Boston Globe
"It remains clear from his later letters that Kerouac understood what he was doing as a writer. He consistently explains his aesthetic, his plan to create the Duluoz Legend of books, and the essentially benign charity of his vision."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Rambunctious and energetic . . . the letters convey the genius of that special American type the perpetual motion man."
The Washington Post
"Kerouac's letters and early stories supplement his legend, providing a fuller portrait of a true American original."
The Boston Globe
Book Information
ISBN 9780140296150
Author Jack Kerouac
Format Paperback
Page Count 608
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 465g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 129mm * 34mm